[csaa-forum] CFP: Cabaret Special Issue

Mon Sep 11 06:52:44 ACST 2023

Comedy Studies

Call for Papers for a Special Issue on Cabaret

Extended Proposal deadline: 1 October 2023

Edited by Dick Zijp (Utrecht University)

Cabaret can be a confusing term. It can both refer to a place, usually a caf? or a small theatre, and to a genre. For some, it raises associations with barely dressed girls in nightclubs (Chakraborty, 2023). For others, it primarily denotes a historical form of comedic variety theatre (Appignanesi, 2004 [1975]). For yet others, it refers to the contemporary art of theatre comedy (Dunkl, 2019; Zijp, 2023). Remarkably, in spite of the term's association with humour and comedy, cabaret has scarcely received attention from scholars in the field of comedy studies. This lack of academic attention has added to the confusion. The sparse academic literature available focuses on the origins of the genre in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Europe, especially in the artistic caf?s of turn-of-the-century Paris and the German and Austrian cabarets of the 1920s (e.g., Appignanesi, 2004, Jelavich, 1993; Segel, 1987). The overwhelming success of Bob Fosse's 1972 film Cabaret has contribute  d to the image of cabaret as a form of nightclub entertainment that belongs to another era. Indeed, the Encyclopedia Brittanica defines cabaret as a 'restaurant that serves liquor and offers a variety of musical entertainment' and points mostly to its historical manifestations.

Meanwhile, the academic literature on comedy tends to focus on the current art of stand-up comedy. As Oliver Double and Sharon Lockyer have pointed out, 'today the word "comedy" is often taken to be synonymous with "stand-up"' (2022, 6). This has somewhat obscured the relationship between cabaret and comedy, and has directed attention away from cabaret's present-day manifestations, and from the continuities and discontinuities between past and present forms.

While approaching cabaret as a form of comedy, this special issue welcomes contributions on the wide range of meanings, associations, and manifestations of cabaret, both past and present, and within a global context. As Double and Lockyer mention, the term cabaret 'suggests a wider range of performance styles' (2022: 6) than the term stand-up comedy. According to Lisa Appignanesi, cabaret originated as a 'vibrant mixture of satire, eroticism and lyricism' (2004: 38) and sits somewhere in between the avant-gardist and the popular, the high and the low, the light and the dark. But in spite of its various manifestations, cabaret is a distinctive genre with its own history, conventions and politics. At the same time, an overemphasis on the presumed origins of cabaret may lead to romanticised or presentist histories of the genre (e.g., Ibo, 1970). This special issue aims to move beyond the dominant historical narratives and is interested in unwritten histories and current manifestations o  f this fascinating and miscellaneous genre.

Contributions may focus on - but are certainly not limited to - topics and/or questions such as:

  *   Local histories of cabaret;

  *   Alternative (non-European) histories of cabaret and transnational influences;

  *   The aesthetic and political workings of humour;

  *   The performance of identity (e.g., gender, sexuality, race, class, caste, ability, religion, appearance, age);

  *   Queer histories of cabaret and queer cabaret;

  *   The production and reception of cabaret performances;

  *   The relationship between humour and eroticism;

  *   The intertwinement of cabaret and other genres or performance styles, such as stand-up comedy, revue, burlesque, circus, variety or musical theatre.

References

Appignanesi, Lisa. 2004 [1975]. The Cabaret. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Chakraborty, Aishika. 2023. "Calcutta Cabaret: Dance of Pleasure or Perversion?" South Asian History and Culture 14 (2): 167-185.

Double, Oliver, and Sharon Lockyer, eds. 2022. Alternative Comedy Now and Then: Critical Perspectives. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Dunkl, Nathalie. 2019. Das Kabarett: Eine Integrative Theorie. Baden-Baden: Tectum Verlag.

Ibo, Wim. 1970. En nu de moraal van dit lied: 75 jaar Nederlands cabaret. Amsterdam: Nederlandse Rotogravure.

Jelavich, Peter. 1993. Berlin Cabaret. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Segel, Harold. 1987. Turn-of-the-century Cabaret: Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Cracow, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Zurich. New York: Columbia University Press.

Zijp, Dick. 2023. Comedians without a Cause: The Politics and Aesthetics of Humour in Dutch Cabaret (1966-2020). Doctoral dissertation, Utrecht University. https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fdspace.library.uu.nl%2Fhandle%2F1874%2F425894&data=05%7C01%7Cn.h.f.holm%40massey.ac.nz%7C71832cbc23504dd4443e08db946b333d%7C388728e1bbd0437898dcf8682e644300%7C1%7C0%7C638266960389672710%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=NLJ0J2HrwqEXL2IDdek70ZcMVpOx%2BGvfPo9g1uJ65og%3D&reserved=0<https://dspace.library.uu.nl/handle/1874/425894>.

Format

Please send an abstract (250-300 words) with a short bio (100-120 words). Deadline: 1 October 2023.

Timeline

Proposals: 1 October 2023

First drafts: 1 February 2024

Final drafts: 15 December 2024

Publication: February 2025

Contact

Issue-related enquiries should be directed to the issue editor via: d.c.zijp at uu.nl<mailto:d.c.zijp at uu.nl<mailto:d.c.zijp at uu.nl%3cmailto:d.c.zijp at uu.nl>>.

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Dr Nicholas Holm<http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/expertise/profile.cfm?stref=990001> |Senior Lecturer in Media Studies|Editor, Comedy Studies | Book Reviews Editor, Humor

Building 7, Room 7C43 |Massey University |Wellington |Aotearoa New Zealand

DDI 04 979 3544 |ext. 63544 | nhfholm at massey.ac.nz

https://nicholasholm.wordpress.com/

Recent Publications

Holm, N. and E. Tilley. (2023) The Aesthetics of Creative Activism<https://academic.oup.com/jaac/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jaac/kpad015/7185629> Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism (Online Advance, Open Access).
Holm, N. (2023) The Limits of Satire, or the Reification of Cultural Politics<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/07255136231154266> Thesis Eleven (Online Advance, Open Access)

Holm, N. (2022) No More Jokes: Comic Complexity, Adult Swim and a Political Aesthetic Model of Humour<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/13675494221087296> European Journal of Cultural Studies 25.2

Holm, N. (2023) Advertising and Consumer Society: A Critical Introduction<https://www.routledge.com/Advertising-and-Consumer-Society-A-Critical-Introduction/Holm/p/book/9781032181363> (2nd Ed), Routledge.

<https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498535694/Ecological-Entanglements-in-the-Anthropocene>
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